👩‍💻 Scripting changes coming soon

News from the Second Life Team – January 2024 Edition

 

Happy New Year! We’re off to a great start to the year at the Lab and happy to share more Second Life updates with you. You’ll find news on scripting additions, PBR Materials, Project Viewers, and an update on the Second Life Mobile Private Alpha program. Enjoy!

A handful of new, useful scripting features will be getting released in the coming weeks:

llComputeHash

LSL’s old llMD5 function has a significant flaw: it always adds a “:” character to the input string. This makes it useless for most hashing purposes. Enter: llComputeHash! This new function can generate a hash of an input string using any of the following hashing algorithms: md5, md5_sha1, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512.

 
default {
touch_start(integer count) {
string message = your-test-message-here;
 
list algorithms = [md5, md5_sha1, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512];
 
integer algorithmCount = llGetListLength(algorithms);
llOwnerSay(message=’ + message + );
 
integer i = 0;
for (i = 0; i < algorithmCount; ++i) {
string algorithm = llList2String(algorithms, i);
string hash = llComputeHash(message, algorithm);
llOwnerSay(algorithm + = + hash);
}
}

llGetNotecardLineSync

You know how it takes an incredible amount of time for your furniture to boot up after resetting its scripts? Argh! Yeah, it’s annoying, and likely due to your sofa/throne/maypole reading configuration from one or more notecards in its inventory.

The new llGetNotecardLineSync function makes loading data from notecards in object inventory much faster by providing a synchronous access method with the caveat that the notecard must be in the region’s asset cache.

 
string NOTECARD_NAME = notecard;
key gLineCountId;
 
default {
state_entry() {
// Request number of notecard lines.
gLineCountId = llGetNumberOfNotecardLines(NOTECARD_NAME);
}
 
dataserver(key id, string data) {
if (id != gLineCountId) { return; }
 
integer count = (integer)data;
integer i;
for (i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
string line = llGetNotecardLineSync(NOTECARD_NAME, i);
if (line == EOF) {
llOwnerSay(—EOF—);
}
else if (line == NAK) {
llOwnerSay(—NAK—);
}
else {
llOwnerSay(line);
}
}
}

BTW, if you’re interested in knowing more about the scripts that power a huge amount of Second Life’s furniture, vehicles and more check out the open source AVsitter project. 🪑

llGetCameraAspect, llGetCameraFOV, and llWorldPosToHUD

Several functions have been added to help content creators position HUDs:

  • llGetCameraAspect – Returns the aspect ratio of the wearer’s screen as a float (width/height)
  • llGetCameraFOV – Returns a float value for the current camera’s field of view
  • llWorldPosToHUD – Returns HUD position of an in-world object
 
integer gHasPerms = FALSE;
 
function printCameraInfo() {
float aspect = llGetCameraAspect();
float fov = llGetCameraFOV();
llOwnerSay(aspect = + (string)aspect + FOV = + (string)fov);
}
 
default {
on_rez(integer a) {
llResetScript();
}
 
state_entry() {
llRequestPermissions(llGetOwner(), PERMISSION_TRACK_CAMERA);
}
 
run_time_permissions(integer perms) {
if (perms & PERMISSION_TRACK_CAMERA) {
gHasPerms = TRUE;
printCameraInfo();
}
}
 
touch_start(integer count)
{
if (gHasPerms) {
printCameraInfo();
} else {
llRequestPermissions(llGetOwner(), PERMISSION_TRACK_CAMERA);
}
}

Scripting roadmap

Status of these upcoming changes and more are visible on Second Life’s new public road visible at feedback.secondlife.com. If you have ideas or feedback on the scripting system check out the Scripting Features and Scripting Bugs boards.

🧪 Project Viewers

😀 Emoji

This viewer is also in RC and is based on a contribution by Kitty Barnett, and adds the ability to insert emojis in text chat.

Maintenance W

This Viewer brings many fixes (see list here), including a fix to a long standing issue with voice failing after quickly restarting your viewer

Maintenance X

This Viewer brings many usability improvements, including:

  • Saving you some clicks by allowing the deletion of folders containing worn items. 
  • In case you only wish to detach, Alt+Shift+R will now detach selected attachments so you can remove those less fashionable items at rapid speed.
  • The time format has been changed to show the more superior SLT instead of PDT.
  • The group join fee will be shown when leaving a group so you can be extra sure you want to leave it.
  • Shift+Alt+N will now open the Notifications floater 
  • Group notices can now be accessed directly from the People floaters Groups tab. Hover that mouse cursor over the group name for access.
  • Group notices will now default as being sorted by date with the newest first 

Maintenance Y

With this Viewer, you can now preview your outfit photos when hovering your cursor over outfits in the Outfit floater. You can also now remove locations from history via the context menu located in the Places floaters Visited tab.

image4.png

See the list of additional fixes here.

Default Viewer

🎨 GLTF PBR Materials

At the end of November, we announced in this blog post that PBR became available grid wide! The PBR Materials project brings increased realism and enables bringing GLTF content into Second Life with expected results. Now you can create scenes with real reflections which mimic how our eyes have learned to identify that a surface is metal, plastic, or some other material. Whether you create objects in Second Life or simply enjoy seeing and wearing them, PBR Materials will provide a big step up in the appearance of the Second Life world.

Individually faceted disco ball reflections
image1.png

As of January 8th, 2024, the PBR Materials Maintenance 1 viewer became the default viewer for Second Life. See Release Notes here. There are 17 new Materials available in the Library so you can start building with PBR today!

📱 Mobile Update

On December 12th, we announced our Mobile Private Alpha, bringing the richness of the Second Life virtual world to your Android or iOS mobile device. Qualifying Premium Plus members can apply now for the Private Alpha. If you are Premium Plus, you can learn more at this link.

Check out this video if you haven’t already!

We’ve had an incredible amount of interest, so if you’ve applied but haven’t been added yet, you’re still on our list. Future testers will be added and notified as the Private Alpha continues to expand. Thanks again for your patience as we process the ongoing demand and we look forward to your participation!

Have A Great Weekend From All Of Us At Zoha Islands/Fruit Islands

Moving From JIRA

Moving From Jira, Pt. 1


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This is the first installment of a series of posts on moving Second Life issues from Jira to a new community engagement portal, feedback.secondlife.com as well as Github Issues.

jira.secondlife.com is Second Life’s venerable bug reporting repository, development tracker and feature request system. It is used by thousands of users and the entire SL development team to envision, fix and build the future of Second Life.

Unfortunately, Jira Server, the software and license agreement we use to host Second Life’s jira.secondlife.com site, is being discontinued and its official replacement cannot handle the number of users (over 300,000) that Second Life needs. Long story short: we need to move off of Jira before support ends in early February, 2024.

As part of this migration effort, we’re excited to announce that we are opening up a new community feedback portal for early preview: feedback.secondlife.com. This site will host feature requests, bug reports and ultimately replace the public BUG project on jira.secondlife.com.

Support issues should still be reported to support.secondlife.com. We will keep using Freshdesk for all personal and content-sensitive tickets.

Where are my issues going?!

Your issues will be preserved and will not be deleted. Second Life has a 20 year history, and Jira represents one of its best sources for documentation. Jira will remain in operation until we migrate all issues to a new home on Github. We will share more information about working with the issue archive in a future blog post.

Feedback Portal

Second Life has a long history of collaboration with its residents. Rather than be bummed out by needing to leave Jira, we wanted to take this opportunity to select a community site that offers a better experience to both users and staff.

You can check out the new engagement portal at feedback.secondlife.com. This new site uses canny.io, a platform designed for receiving and responding to community feedback. We believe it will be a demonstrably better experience for residents due to features such as:

A public roadmap

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We will be providing a public roadmap of user-suggested features which have been accepted and will be implemented. This will provide greater transparency into the future of Second Life and drive accountability for us, so that we deliver what we say we would. 😜

Multiple boards

image4.png

The new feedback portal provides boards for different areas of Second Life: general feature requests and bugs, website bugs and features, scripting, etc. This will allow users to easily read up on bugs and feature requests pertaining to their area of interest, and allows triagers on our side to more easily figure out who should review new information.

Board features

  • Markdown – Text can be formatted using a simplified version of Markdown
  • Issue merging – Staff can merge issues instead of marking them as duplicate
  • Trending Posts – Boards may be sorted by trending posts, which combines freshness and popularity

Better Process

We have come to realize that the effects of some of our Jira workflows were, intentionally or otherwise, rather adversarial to engagement (read: unfriendly.) We are fixing this by acknowledging the following problems and resolving them with different behavior on the new feedback site:

Conversations remain open
One of the most detrimental features of our public Jira workflow was how it locked conversations (comments, etc.) after tickets were marked as accepted. This is not the default behavior in the new portal: comments will be allowed throughout the entire lifecycle of the request!

Know when your idea ships
The “clone issue” process on Jira resulted in a large portion of user-submitted issues never being marked as completed when their respective issues were shipped. This will be much less of an issue on feedback.secondlife.com because issues will be directly tied to their internal development tickets and automatically closed when the change ships.

Voting is Encouraged!
Vote to your heart’s content. We want to hear from you which issues are most important.

Behind the Scenes

Part of the rationale for moving to Canny, the software behind feedback.secondlife.com, as opposed to alternative issue tracking solutions is that it is a very focused product that is tailor made for responding to user feedback and prioritizing ideas. In addition, the platform fit the bill by providing the following necessary requirements:

  • Single sign-on (SSO) – Users can log in using their Second Life account
  • Github Integration – Posts can be linked to Github Issues, the platform we are adopting for software development, and automatically marked as completed when the Github issue is finished.
  • Triage Tools – Canny provides a fast, unified view for triaging issues, prioritizing work, and getting it onto a roadmap.

image1.png

 

Public issues are not the only thing moving off of Jira –internal tickets will be migrating to Github Issues. Canny provides easy ways to create and link issues on Github, providing a better workflow than the previous “Clone” system we used on Jira.

image5.png

 

Open Source Collaboration

On the topic of Github, we will be making it easier for open source contributors to engage with Second Life project maintainers and our OSS projects through Github and Github Issues. Canny provides convenient integration with Github Issues, and we will be exploring ways of opening up Second Life development to open source contributors by more directly working in the open.

😖 Differences from Jira

Not everything is perfect. Both staff and residents have developed a lot of well established mental wiring, process and infrastructure around Jira. Canny is also not a Jira replacement: it’s a community engagement tool which may require changes to behavior:

  • Limited attachment support – Canny only supports image attachments. All other media types will need to be linked to.
  • No private posts – If your report contains sensitive information then please redact/censor private information. If this is not possible, because it is material to the issue being filed, then please file a support ticket if it is personal in nature or security report if it represents a vulnerability.

Timeline and migration details

Jira access will end in early February. In the time leading up to that date we will be performing backups, migrating existing issues to their new home on Github, and allowing residents to use and provide feedback on the new engagement portal.

image3.png

Details about the issue migration process, such as how to find Jira issues post jira.secondlife.com shutdown will be talked about in a future post. Until then, we are excited to see new feature requests and reports over at feedback.secondlife.com.

Conclusion

Making a significant change like this is no small task. Staff and residents alike have grown deeply familiar with jira.secondlife.com through countless hours spent using the site. We hope you will have patience as we migrate data, build documentation, develop new muscle memory and smooth out wrinkles in tools and processes. These updates, along with changes like moving our engineering organization to Github and Github Actions, are part of a larger initiative to modernize Second Life development. The future is exciting, and we hope you can bear with us as we drive down the path to get there.

Have A Great Rest Of Your Week And Weekend From All Of Us At Zoha Islands/Fruit Islands

Happy New Year

Join the Excitement of Fun and Educational Community Events in Second Life!

 

American Cancer Society.jpg

Happy New Year, Second Life Residents! If you’re eager to kick off 2024 with a burst of excitement, here are some fun and educational community-driven activities and events lined up throughout the year. Enroll in building classes, attend lively festivals, and immerse yourself in educational conferences throughout the coming year. 

Relay For Life – Unveiling the Power of Unity

desination-preview-image-american-cancer-society

American Cancer Society

The official home of the American Cancer Society in Second Life. Since 2005, cancer patients, caregivers, and volunteers have been able to receive services and support from the ACS in SL without having to leave the virtual world. Visit the island to learn more or to make a donation to fund the world’s largest and most successful cancer research program. More info at relayforlife.com/secondlife

Go on a journey of compassion and support as Relay For Life of Second Life events kick off this year. Mark your calendars as registrations open this month. SL Living Expo, Fantasy Faire, and other event dates have already been announced. Don’t miss out on any details – follow the American Cancer Society Google calendar for all the info! 

Burn2 – Festival of Community, Art, and Fire

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Burn2

Experience BURN2, the festival of community, art, and fire that brings the culture and cool of Burning Man to the metaverse. Learn more at www.burn2.org

Experience the virtual rendition of Burning Man in Second Life with Burn2! With captivating events every quarter, their first event, Winter Burn, starts on January 26th. Explore the details on their website and get more info about their weekly meetings and events in their Google calendar. It’s a virtual festival you won’t want to miss!

VWBPE – Unleashing Educational Innovations

VWBPE-Official-Logo.png
The Virtual Worlds Best Practice in Education (VWBPE) is a community-based open conference that provides opportunities for participants in all virtual worlds to share current teaching, learning, and research practices in 3D virtual environments. This year’s theme is “Mythic Origins” and it runs from March 14-16, 2024. Join the event for three days of lectures, workshops, discussions, games, and fun! It’s a must-attend event for anyone passionate about the intersection of virtual environments and education. Learn more on their website at vwbpe.org.

VWEC – Igniting Educational Conversations

Continue to elevate your educational journey with the Virtual Worlds Education Consortium (VWEC) Eduverse! If you’re passionate about fostering collaboration among educators and navigating the virtual landscape, this is the destination for you. You can learn more about VWEC from the Spotlight interview of three of their coordinators. Additionally, you can check their website and their Google Calendar to attend their daily events and fireside chats.

Virtual Ability – Empowering Lives in Virtual Worlds

Virtual Ability, a non-profit corporation founded in 2007, is dedicated to enabling individuals with a wide range of disabilities to flourish in online virtual worlds. They have two major events throughout the year, keep an eye on their website for more information coming soon: 

  1. Mental Health Symposium (May): In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, Virtual Ability hosts the annual Mental Health Symposium. This event serves as a platform to share crucial information about mental health and disabilities with the broader population. The cross-disability community within Virtual Ability includes members dealing with various mental health issues. The symposium not only offers a chance for community members to learn from experts they might not encounter otherwise but also opens the doors for the general public to attend a professional conference at no cost.
  2. International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (October/November): Taking place around October/November each year, this conference is a testament to Virtual Ability’s commitment to advocating for disability rights globally. Join this empowering event that brings together voices from the disability community to discuss, affirm, and advance the rights of individuals with disabilities.

Builder’s Brewery – Crafting Dreams Since 2008

For all aspiring builders out there, Builder’s Brewery is your go-to destination. Established in 2008, it stands as one of Second Life’s oldest hubs for learning. Dive into free training classes covering everything from building to scripting, textures, mesh, animations, and more. Check their schedule of classes on their Google Calendar.

 

Find even more educational destinations and exciting events in the Education, Help & How To, and Featured Events categories on the Destination Guide throughout the year!

But wait, there’s more! Along with these community-driven activities, we here at Linden Lab also have a lot in store for 2024 – including the Valentine Shop & Hop which is about to open on February 1st, and of course our 21st birthday celebrations in June! 

Get ready for a year filled with excitement, creativity, and unforgettable experiences in Second Life. Don’t miss out on the action – stay connected: follow our Featured News blog, sign up for our weekly email newsletter, and connect with us on social media.

Let the adventure begin, happy 2024!

Happy New Year From All Of The Staff At Zoha Islands/Fruit Islands Stay Tuned For Estate Updates and Upgrades.

Second Life Mobile – Now in Private Alpha!


 

The Second Life app brings the richness of the Second Life virtual world to your Android or iOS mobile device…and Second Life Premium Plus members are among the first to get access.

With the new Second Life Mobile, you can experience a new level of convenience and engagement in your Second Life adventures, whether you’re at home or on the go. In this initial Private Alpha release, you can:

* See your avatar & edit appearance by changing outfits 
* Explore the world via the Destination Guide, mobile showcase, own favorites (teleport, deep links, TP offers)
* Interact with the world through a limited set of movements (walk, run, fly, sit, stand) and object interactions (touch, sit) – or park your avatar and explore via flycam.
* Socialize and stay connected (nearby chat, group chat, IM, group notices, find contacts, inspect profiles)
* Create and log in with a new account

…and there’s more to come in future releases!

Qualifying Premium Plus members can apply now for the Private Alpha. If you are Premium Plus, you can learn more at: Premium Plus – Second Life Mobile Private Alpha Sign-Up

Please note that while all Premium Plus subscribers are eligible to participate in the Private Alpha, we’ll be adding users in small groups over time. There is a server registration limit and we’ll be adding participants on a first come first served basis.Your patience is appreciated! We know you’re excited (and so are we!) but we’ll need time to process applications, add test accounts via TestFlight and Google Play and then, most importantly, process your feedback.

And please remember, this is still early Alpha! That means it’s buggy, and it’s missing functionality. It also means we’re looking for your help in making it better. 

Once we are through the alpha and beta testing phases, Second Life Mobile will be accessible to all users.

Not Premium Plus? Upgrade today at https://secondlife.com/premium 

Have A Great Weekend From All Of Us At Zoha Islands/Fruit Islands

Hackers are stealing Second Life’s player-made lootboxes and selling them for profit

Second Life is a virtual world stereotypically thought to be steeped in cyber sex, but beyond that thin layer of prurience is a thriving community of artists creating everything from lavish Beverly Hills-style mansions to the eyeliner your avatar wears. Its economy is a staggering $500 million USD machine of virtual ecommerce, with many players making a real-world living by creating, marketing, and selling digital products. But those same creators are locked in a long battle against groups of cheaters who, using a series of exploits, are stealing their products and selling them for profit on Second Life’s official Marketplace. It’s potentially costing Second Life’s virtual artists tens of thousands of real dollars and highlights the nightmare of defending your intellectual property on the internet.

Second Life is unique in the MMO genre for many reasons. It’s not so much a game as it is a social space that players can customize however they like. Called ‘sims,’ these sandboxes are spaces that players fill with all manner of player-designed objects. Unlike other MMOs, however, these objects aren’t created using some in-game crafting system, but built with software like 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, and a lot more. Some players build mansions and throw elegant parties while others own retail stores that sell their hand-crafted apparel. And, yes, some just want to have cybersex.

Second Life’s creators were on track to take home $60 million USD collectively in 2017.

But it’s also unique in that, unlike most MMOs, players can exchange Second Life’s ingame currency (called Lindens) for US dollars. Peter Gray, who was Linden Lab’s senior director of global communication before leaving early this year, told me via email that Second Life’s creators were on track to take home $60 million USD collectively in 2017. It’s what’s led many players to turn Second Life into a full-time job. But for two years now, those same creators have also had to deal with the frustrating rise of ‘dupers’ or ‘copybotters’—players who illegally duplicate their items for profit using exploits.

Theft of a salesman

“It’s very much a big deal,” Oobleck Allagash tells me. He’s the owner of PocketGacha, an innovative HUD-based storefront that works with several designer brands in Second Life to sell their products. Since launching in August, PocketGacha has made “more than tens of millions of Linden” in sales from “tens of thousands” of customers. While many creators in Second Life were vaguely aware that duping was an issue, Allagash became a unifying voice in the community because PocketGacha’s backend system allowed him to track sold inventory across multiple brands and see how widespread the issue was becoming. It’s how he became aware that the Marketplace was frequently featuring items for sale at seemingly infinite quantities and exorbitantly low prices—both telltale signs that they had been duplicated.

A lot of artistry goes into Second Life’s virtual products.

Allagash tells me that, in Second Life, one of the most popular ways to shop is through games of ‘gacha’ or, as its traditionally known in Japan, ‘gashapon.‘ “It’s a game where you have a machine that you play, paying typically about 50 Linden [$0.25 USD] for each go, and you are given either a common item or, if you’re lucky, you’ll eventually get a rare item which is typically more robust in its design,” Allagash explains. “It can be a vehicle or a house, for example.” Some gachas might award makeup or articles of clothing in a complete outfit, while others, like the popular Kunst brand, offer meticulously crafted themed decor.

On the surface there’s little difference between gachas and the controversial loot boxes that are appearing in many games like Star Wars Battlefront 2, but there’s several key distinctions. For one, these items have tangible value. Each play is always rewarded with an item, and any you win can be resold on Second Life’s Marketplace for Lindens and then converted into US dollars. Secondly, the proceeds of these items goes to their respective creators, not Linden Lab (though it does collect a small transaction fee for items sold on the Marketplace). And for those who hate the gambling aspect of gacha games and loot boxes, many creators also offer a buyout price to purchase the set in full.

“It develops sort of a trading atmosphere where people will trade for commons and rares,” Allagash explains. “There’s a whole cottage industry that has developed in Second Life of people reselling a lot of these items that they get.”

In Second Life, some items are ‘copy’ items, which can be copied and pasted multiple times inside of a sim. Most gacha items are different. Called ‘transfers,’ they can only be placed in a simulation once, and if you sell it, it’s gone from you inventory. Like Magic: The Gathering, it’s a market valued by the scarcity of sought-after rare products, and Second Life’s dupers are undermining the whole thing.

“Some bad guys have figured out how to duplicate as many of these transfer items as they want,” Allagash says. “You can duplicate thousands of them, and they have real value on the reseller market.” While the exact exploit is a closely guarded secret, the general idea is that these dupers strategically “crash” a sim, which somehow allows them to create infinite duplicates of an item. Dupers can even duplicate in-game gift cards for various player-owned stores, letting them buy anything for free.

Buyer beware

According to several players I spoke with, it’s been a problem for years that Linden Lab only acknowledged in November after mounting pressure from the creator community. “Recently, we closed an exploit that fraudulent gacha re-sellers had used,” the company said in an update posted on November 2. “Our governance team can now catch them when they attempt the cheating method that we have already fixed.”

Second Life’s creators hoped it would be an end to duping. Inevitably, it wasn’t. I spoke with one creator who requested to remain anonymous. Their brand is one of the more popular in Second Life and it’s become a full-time job that earns them a healthy income. Days after launching a new product line after Linden Lab allegedly shut the exploit down, they found a suspicious listing on the Marketplace offering the entire product line in one bulk package for almost 1300 Lindens less than the competition.

I don’t even like to imagine [the damage to my business] most of the time.

Anonymous

Second Life’s Marketplace doesn’t let customers see metrics like units sold, so this creator and Allagash had to get creative. The maximum amount of quantity that can be purchased at one time is ten, so they began buying up stock to see how much this alleged duper had. It was an impossible amount. During my interview with Allagash, he demonstrated this by sharing his screen with me via Skype. I watched as he purchased almost 40 full sets of this creator’s product line from the alleged duper. He then showed me PocketGacha’s backend tracking system, which operates similarly to any retail store, to show how unlikely it was that one person could have potentially over a hundred copies of this particular item when only several hundred had been given away through the gacha game.

Making matters worse, this alleged duper was the most popular listing for these particular items on the Marketplace, effectively tanking their value. “The damage is huge,” the anonymous creator tells me. “I’m the one paying for the subscriptions for the programs to create my products, I’m paying for marketing, I’m paying for the cost of running the sims—everything to keep my business going. Then there’s the emotional and time investment into the work. The amount of time it takes to make a gacha release, for example, can lead to 16-hour days. I don’t even like to imagine [the damage to my business] most of the time. Over a day or two it might just be a hundred dollars maybe, but over years…”

A screen capture of one alleged duper selling items for well below their going rate.

One thing that isn’t clear is what these dupers hope to gain, but Allagash and the creator I spoke to both insist it has to be real-world money. “They’re clearly not just doing this to be able to have fun in Second Life. They’re making significant money,” Allagash tells me. Because Second Life’s virtual economy is susceptible to money laundering, Linden Lab has a strict process for withdrawing US dollars. Allagash says that if it’s possible these dupers have found ways to undermine the game, it’s plausible they might have found loopholes in withdrawing their money too.

Creators aren’t the only ones finding it hard to compete with dupers, either. As Allagash tells me, Second Life has a massive economy of professional resellers. These players gamble on gachas and then sell the items they receive to ultimately turn a profit themselves. It can be a very lucrative business, according to one reseller—until dupers get involved, that is. “When [dupers] steal designs to sell I no longer invest in a set, depriving the creator of money,” Sushnik Samas, a reseller, tells me. “The expected return on a copied set plummets. Others may not be quite as scientific as I am, but surely realize they are bleeding money and also stop playing a set giving the thief free reign on the copied virtual goods.”

A history of being duped

Wanting the perspective of someone whose livelihood wasn’t impacted by this, I reached out to Wagner James Au, a tech consultant and owner of the prominent Second Life and virtual reality blog, New World Notes. He tells me that, despite the outrage, the problem of duping is largely contained within the niche of gacha sellers. “For one thing, only a fraction of the total [Second Life] economy is based around the web-based Marketplace—most active SLers prefer to conduct many or most transactions in-world, since it’s a more seamless, immersive experience.”

This is just one more chapter in Second Life’s long history of intellectual copyright theft.

Au goes on to explain that this is just one more chapter in Second Life’s long history of intellectual copyright theft. Since 2006, players have frequently found their virtual products stolen and duplicated in a number of ways, which “inevitably (and usually belatedly), Linden Lab tamps down with some increased whack-a-mole against infringers, and the outrage is shunted elsewhere.”

But even Au agrees that while duping might not be killing Second Life, it’s still an issue. “Linden Lab has not been transparent or sufficiently responsive to duping issues like this, especially when many people’s literal livelihood depends on their responsiveness. The fact that the [Second Life] virtual economy as a whole is more or less doing well doesn’t change that.”

Speaking with Allagash and the others affected by this, Au’s statement echoes their frustrations: Dupers are to be expected, but Linden Lab needs to improve. The company employs measures to protect its creators’ rights chiefly through a DMCA filing process and an internal abuse reporting system. The problem, as Allagash tells me, is that neither of these systems is very efficient.

“The DMCA report is managed by an outside company will take this particular thing down faster than an abuse report,” Allagash tells me. “So what happens in this sort of spider web is that the DMCA report will take [the Marketplace listing] first, which is immediately helpful for that creator. But after the DMCA report takes it down, there’s no [evidence for the abuse report] and so Linden Labs does nothing. The person isn’t banned, there’s no punishment. They come right back and do it again.”

For the creators who are, in many ways, the lifeblood of Second Life, it’s immensely frustrating since both systems can take days or weeks to produce results. “I feel like they see the DMCA as the end-all to the problem,” the anonymous creator told me. “And in some sense, it is—the item is removed from sale. But the problem is that someone can just make a new account and upload the item again. It’s [Linden Lab’s] follow through with repeat offenders that is lacking, and it’s their unwillingness to comment or work with us on it that makes me feel not valued as a creator.”

Linden Lab, however, feels differently. “We take the protection of SL content creators and our community very seriously,” Peter Gray, who was Linden Lab’s senior director of global communications until departing the company during the writing of this story, told me via email. “We do not share metrics on account bans, but can confirm that we have permanently closed a number of accounts for this activity and are committed to vigorously pursuing any violation of our Terms of Service and Community Standards.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for bad actors to move onto new methods. We are engaged in an ongoing pursuit of cheaters and continuously closing loopholes and working to protect our creator community,” Gray added.

When asked about the specific actions creators could take to protect their intellectual copyright, Gray said, “We follow the DMCA take down process as prescribed by the law. Abuse reports submitted by users are normally reviewed within 72 hours, although the process may take longer in some cases, depending on the type of report and information provided. We cannot comment on specific accounts, and therefore users who submit abuse reports are not notified about actions taken as a result of their reports. Unfortunately, that may lead some users to feel as if their reports may be ineffective, even when they actually result in account bans and other enforcement actions.”

But that’s not good enough for many of Second Life’s creators. While the MMO is often passed off as an aging game with a limited playerbase, CEO Ebbe Altberg told Motherboard in an interview in 2016 that 900,000 players still log in monthly. And for those who have turned their passion for it into a full-time job as a virtual designer, it’s easy to see how the continuing theft of their hard work is so damaging. “We just want our work to be protected,” the creator tells me. “In the age that we live in, it’s a basic right on the internet—I would hope.”

Linden Lab Plans SL Improvements

In a recent article in the Second Life blog, Linden Labs announces upcoming planned improvements to the Second Life platform. As promised in a recent video interview given after Linden Lab dropped the bombshell that a new virtual world was being developed, Linden Lab continues to dedicate resources to improving the current Second Life platform.

From a long list of improvements and enhancements that LL plans to bring to Second Life, they weighed priorities and scoped out a list of important projects for the next few months. They shared a few highlights from the list of projects LL will be working on so that residents are aware of what improvements to expect in the coming months. This isn’t an exhaustive list, of course, but here are a few of the initiatives LL thinks will have a big impact on improving all of our Second Life experiences.

One of those developments and improvements is Experience Keys, that I blogged about earlier.

Linden Lab posted this about Experience Keys:

Releasing Experience Keys
We recently put out a call for creators to join a limited beta for Experience Keys – new LSL functions and calls that make it possible to bypass the multiple permissions dialogs that you encounter with scripted objects today. Thanks to the applications we received, we now have enough creators to move ahead with the beta, and we’ve begun giving these beta users access the keys. The feedback we get from beta participants will help determine our next steps for making Experience Keys available to everyone, and we may start by expanding the beta group with a second group of creators.

In the meantime, though, everyone can get a sense for what’s possible with Experience Keys by downloading the Project Viewer and checking out The Cornfield game.

Improving Group Chat Performance

One of the most frustrating experiences in SL is group chat. As most of you know, group chat is notoriously laggy, resulting in either serious chat lag that makes a connected conversation impossible, or the fact that group chat just flat out refuses to open at all. I know that when I do large weddings, it is extremely helpful in trying to organize everyone that we all get into a group chat, and nine times out of ten, it just doesn’t work. It is incredibly frustrating.

Linden Lab states: “We’re carefully monitoring the effects of the changes we make to improve group chat performance, and so far, the results of efforts like upgrading the servers that host chat have been positive. We anticipate that the work to improve group chat performance will continue for some time as we identify the underlying causes of the issues, experiment with different fixes, and analyze results.”

Implementing the Chrome Embedded Framework

Linden Lab is working to upgrade the component of the viewer that is responsible for rendering web content, including the viewer splash screen (displayed before login), the content of a number of floaters, and inworld media-on-a-prim. This is important because it will fix a number of bugs (especially related to streaming media) that currently affect many Second Life users, and it will also make available many modern web features that aren’t possible with the current viewer.

Linden Lab states: “We’re making good progress on this initiative already, and expect to have an experimental Project Viewer ready for testing soon.”

More Texture and Mesh Loading Improvements

Building upon the performance enhancements made with Project Shining, LL is continuing to make improvements to how the viewer retrieves texture and mesh data from the servers. Linden Lab indiates that the next round of improvements will reduce the number of connections the viewer needs to get this data (making it easier on your router and network), while also using each connection to retrieve more data more quickly (for the technically inclined, this means that among other things we will add support for HTTP pipelining).

These improvements will mean that as you explore Second Life, objects will appear more quickly and reliably, especially for users who have longer latency connections (higher “ping times”), such as those who live outside the US.

Linden Lab states: “We have begun doing small scale testing with a selected group of users, and the early results have been great from a performance point of view. Unfortunately, we’ve also encountered a bug that we need to tackle before we can move on to releasing a project Viewer. We’re eager to move ahead as quickly as we can, and will … announce that project Viewer as soon as it’s available.”

Again, these certainly aren’t the only things LL is working on as they continue to improve Second Life, but they’re among their priority initiatives in the coming months.

It is certainly good to know that Linden Lab is clearly putting time and effort into the Second Life platform. Stay tuned here, as I will report changes and improvements as quickly as Linden Lab publishes them. Meanwhile, visit The Cornfield and check out the benefit of the Experience Keys improvements. I haven’t had time to visit it yet, but I plan to this weekend. My only concern is getting chased by someone with a chain saw! Horror flicks are not my thing!!

Have a wonderful weekend, and don’t forget to click over and check out our available land! This is a great weekend to stay indoors, keep cool and shop for your upgrade or new home today!

I remain respectfully yours,
~ Suzanne Piers
ZoHa Islands Social Media Manager